


Coming Home

by RosieIce



Category: We Need to Talk About Kevin - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-05-31 14:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19428211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieIce/pseuds/RosieIce
Summary: Kevin's sentence is over. Eva takes him home and they resume the delicate relationship between a mother and her child.





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters.
> 
> Wow! 200 hits?!?! Thank you, readers :)

Eva waits for him at the prison’s gates. The main building where he’ll be exiting is quite a distance away. If anyone else were to watch him go from the prison to where she stands, it’ll be analogous to the walk of shame. The door finally opens and out comes Kevin. His head is bowed as the guard guides him to the gate. As soon as Kevin is within 10 feet of her, he finally looks up and meets her gaze. He looks the same, if not worse, as he did before he was sent to the prison five years ago. The hair he used to grow long is still buzzed and he gained a few inches in height. The metaphorical mask he wore for most of his life has gone, showing the young man’s vulnerability. 

The guard unlocks the gate separating mother from child and without another word, Kevin steps out from his imprisonment and into his mother’s open arms. He hugs her. He actually hugs her first. She returns the hug while rubbing circles onto his back. When Kevin lowers his arms, Eva opens the car door for him. He slides in without saying anything. She climbs into the driver’s seat and takes them home. 

Silence; it filled the car. Eva turns her head and is about to ask how he feels, but decides against it. She returns her focus to the road. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Kevin facing her. He inhales to speak, but nothing comes out. He then focuses on the road as well. No one says anything for the rest of the ride. 

She parks the car in front of the rickety house that was her home for the past seven years. She climbs out and is halfway to the door when she realizes Kevin hasn’t left the car yet. She turns around and waits patiently for him. He takes the time to collect his thoughts as he finally opens the door and walks up. He didn’t even take a good look at the exterior of the house; he went straight to the door and waited for her to unlock it. 

“This is it, I’m afraid. Let me give you the tour.” She shows him the living room, kitchen, bathroom, then ends at his bedroom. He stands at the door staring at his new room. And continues to stand there. The expression on his face is blank. Feeling that she did all she could for him, she turns around and heads into her own room, closing the door. She lies down on the bed, facing the ceiling, relieved that she can rest. Her moment of peace doesn’t last long when she hears her bedroom door open. She doesn’t bother looking up, knowing it was her son. Kevin shuffles to the foot of the bed and hesitates before climbing into her bed, with his back facing her. He puts a considerate amount of distance between them before he pulls himself into the fetal position. 

Eva waits. Silence continues to fall upon them. He doesn’t move, neither does she. With hesitation, she slowly lifts her hand and softly touches Kevin’s head. He flinches, but doesn’t do anything else. Taking the fact that he didn’t stop her as a sign that he’s okay with it, she keeps stroking his buzzed head. Sleep finally greets her just as Kevin lets out a sigh.

* * *

An unknown amount of time passed before Eva returns to consciousness. She opens her eyes and the first sight she sees is Kevin, quietly watching her with a strange intensity. She closes her eyes. After a minute, she can feel him leave the bed and out of the room. That’s when she allows her eyes to open again. Eva glances at the clock and figures out that both of them slept for over twelve hours. She figures she may as well prepare breakfast for them before she goes to work.

Kevin is already waiting for her at the kitchen table. He is still wearing the clothes from the previous day. Eva pulls out the ingredients for French toast and busies herself.

“Why did you decorate it the same?”

At her son’s question, she stops beating the egg mixture and looks his way.

“Your room?”

He smirks at her. “What else would I be talking about?”

“I thought you would appreciate something familiar when your sentence was over.”

“You made the assumption that I would miss my old room,” he accused her. “That I could miss something that used to be mine.”

His mother nodded.

He continued, “Do you miss our old house?”

“No. I never liked it.”

“But it was yours.”

“In a way, it belonged to all of us.”

“Yet, you don’t miss what you used to own. So why would you think that I would miss something I didn’t like?”

“You can change your room however you like. We can go to the hardware shop or furniture store when I return from work.”

Kevin doesn’t respond. She wants to continue cooking their breakfast, but the topic of her job got her thinking.

“You know, you can get a job too. Have some extra money to buy new clothes or save up for college.”

He lets out a half-hearted laugh. “Who would possibly want to hire me?”, he asks incredulously with a smirk on his face. Eva doesn’t have an answer. Instead, she drowns the slices of bread in the egg mixture and heats it up on the stove.

* * *

After breakfast, Kevin went up to his new room. With a few minutes to spare after getting dressed and readying herself, Eva knocks on his door and waits for him to respond. He opens the door a few inches and asks what she wants. She holds up a slip of paper with her cellphone number written on it. Her son looks at her as he grabs the paper, looks down at it with a frown, then back up at her. She waits for him to say anything. When he doesn’t, she heads out without a goodbye.

He doesn’t call her. She kept her phone on hand in case Kevin had some emergency. She was concerned that someone would hear about her son’s release and would want to assault him or trash the house again. Luckily, when she returns home, she finds him watching the weather channel, with a bored expression on his face. She changes into her casual clothes and joins him on the sofa. He keeps his focus on the television screen.

She speaks first. “You hungry?”

“Already ate. You’re out of eggs, so you know.”

“I’ll pick some up next time I buy groceries. Perhaps you can come with me this weekend?”

“Sure, whatever you want.”

They go back to not speaking. That night, Kevin sleeps in his own room. Eva wonders about his future. Could he find a job so he can go to college? Would a college accept him? Would he be able to find and keep a job? If not, would she have to work a second job so he could go to school? Would he want to go to school? The list of questions wouldn’t end.

* * *

Eva hopes she is dreaming when she opens her eyes. She is still in her bed, but Kevin is crouching above her. He caresses her cheeks as he looks down at her with an expression she is not familiar with. She tries to sit up, but her son grabs her shoulders to keep her down.

“Kevin?,” she asks. He softly shushes her as he brings his forehead to hers and continues to shush her. His lips are dangerously close to her mouth; his eyes still carry that unidentified emotion.

“Kevin, what are you doing?” 

“Go back to sleep,” he whispers as he strokes her hair, similar to how she stroked his head the other night. “Go back to sleep,” he says again and again. She doesn’t know what to do, so she silently prays that if she does what he says, nothing bad would happen to her. Cautiously, Eva closes her eyes and tries to return to sleep. Kevin keeps on stroking her hair and shushing her to keep her calm. Somehow, Eva falls back asleep.

* * *

The next morning, Eva remembers the weird event, unsure if it was a dream or not. She sits up and surveys her room, but there is no evidence that Kevin was there last night. She hurries down to the kitchen, where sure enough, Kevin is there, waiting. He was eating some toast when he glances up at her. He raises an eyebrow at the curious state Eva was in. She goes for acting nonchalant and asks: “How did you sleep?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I slept.”

Eva’s curiosity gets the better of her. “Were you in my room last night?”

Kevin stops eating his toast and looks up at her. “Why do you ask?”

“Answer me first.”

“No. I was in my room asleep,” he replies. However, his tone had a hint of sarcasm to it. Eva wasn’t sure what to make of this answer. So she replies with a simple “okay, must have been a dream,” and leaves it at that. She goes to make toast as well and couldn’t help turning around to watch his reaction. Kevin is looking at her with a mixed expression as he eats. It looked like a combination of curiosity, nonchalance, and- perhaps she was over thinking it-but a little bit like that unknown expression from last night.

“What?,” he asks. Eva realizes she was staring. She immediately goes to apologize before she realizes he was staring at her too, yet she felt like a child who was caught doing something wrong.

She stops herself from turning back to her toast and gathers up some courage to talk. “Would you like to buy some stuff for your room tomorrow? I’ll have the day off.”

Kevin stares at her with those intense eyes. He seems to be analyzing her. He takes the last bite of his toast without breaking his gaze, swallows, then replies: “I might be tied up.”

Eva wasn’t expecting that. She especially didn’t like the sense of deja vu. “Doing what?”

His response was definitely sarcastic. “Being a model citizen. Looking for a job. Going on the prowl for a potential wife. You know...the usual.” He stands up, takes the empty plate to the sink, then walks up to his mother and gave her what might have been a reassuring touch on the shoulder, but to Eva, gave a vibe of all types of wrong. Kevin smirked knowingly at her before he leaves the room. Eva stayed in place as she pondered his response and the shoulder touch. Deciding to give him the benefit of doubt, she finishes making her toast and doesn’t bother sitting down to eat. 

* * *

The next day, Kevin casually mentioned how his plans had to be canceled, so mother and son went to the furniture store. Eva couldn’t help feeling relieved for some odd reason. 

She pushed the cart in front of her while Kevin strolled along by her side. She saw him eye a pillow and she was about to lean over to put it in the cart when Eva took a closer look. The dark blue pillow was adorned with decorative white arrows pointing in the same direction. Kevin stared at the accessory as a darkness bled into his eyes; it looked like he was reliving that Thursday. The day he was arrested for firing arrows at those students.

Eva gently shook her son’s shoulders, but his mind was too far gone someplace she didn’t want to follow. She called his name and when that didn’t work, pinched his arm. He yelped in pain as he scooted away from her. Kevin rubbed the sore spot before he looked up at Eva with irritation, then he seemed to realize why she pinched him because he looked between his mother and that pillow and back to her. Probably out of shame, he walked past her, so she couldn’t read his face.

With a final look at the item, Eva turned to catch up with her son.

The two of them left the store with a fluffy new pillow, new bed sheets, and a simple-looking lamp. Neither mentioned the arrow-adorned pillow. It was also silently agreed that nobody wanted to discuss the topic of Thursday, so it was left alone for now.

* * *

Two nights have passed when Eva experienced another weird moment with Kevin in her bedroom. She was awoken by a sound which turned out to be Kevin going through her closet. “Kevin?,” she whispered as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

Kevin looked up at her voice, returned the dress he was holding to its hanger, then slowly walked to her bed. He climbed onto it and positioned himself behind her so that they were spooning. He snuggled his face into the crook of her neck while his arms secured themselves around her waist.

“You should go back to your room,” Eva said in a quiet shaky voice.

“I _am_ in my room.”

This confused her. “Kevin, this is my room. Yours is next door.”

“No,” Kevin shook his head against her neck. “This is my room. You should go to sleep; got work in the morning. No more talking.”

Eva tried to argue, but Kevin raised his hand from her waist and covered her mouth. He gently shushed her. “No more talking,” he repeated. Eva didn’t know how much time passed before her anxiety slipped away, allowing her to sleep.

The next morning, there was no trace that her son was in her closet or her bed. Eva woke early enough to creep to the room next door and slowly open the door. Kevin was sound asleep in his own bed, wearing pajamas she didn’t remember him wearing the previous night.

Eva quietly closed the door and returned to her room. She sat on the bed and pondered. And pondered some more. Last night felt so real, as much as it did the first time. If Kevin was indeed in her room, what did that mean? Did he suffer from some Oedipal complex? If she were dreaming instead, did that mean she had forbidden thoughts she kept buried, or was she dreaming of what she assumed Kevin wanted out of her? She asked herself all these questions, but couldn’t come up with an answer.

* * *

The mysterious nightly occurrences happened three times a week from then on. And every morning after, there was no evidence of what happened. Kevin usually kept his hands above the waist while avoiding two important features.

Eva tried recording her bedroom in secret to catch her son in the act, but the footage always showed her alone in an empty room, even on the nights she remembered her son climbing into bed with her. She had no explanation.

* * *

Roughly a month after Kevin’s release, he randomly hugged her the morning after one of those mysterious possible-dreams.

“What was that for?,” Eva asked. She was too stunned to focus on anything other than her son initiating a hug.

“You looked like you needed it. Another ‘naughty Kevin’ dream?” He used air quotes as he walked to the living room.

“Yes, but you don’t hug. At least, you didn’t used to hug me before-“

Kevin whipped his head to her direction and shook his head, clearly not wanting her to finish that sentence.

Eva relented; instead she changed the subject. “Have you considered getting your GED?”

Her son smiled as he stared off into the distance. “Got it already. Two years ago.”

“You did? In prison?”

“Yep. Where else would I get it?”

“Well, I’m surprised. Nobody mentioned it when I visited you.”

“Because I told people to shut up about it,” Kevin said as he sat up from the couch and headed to his room. Eva heard him return to the living room a couple of minutes later, but then he kept walking. She heard the front door open. “I’m going for a walk. Don’t wait up.” He closed the door behind him.

Without a chance to ask where he was going, Eva was home alone.

* * *

Kevin didn’t come home that night. Eva returned from work, made dinner for herself, then settled down in front of the tv with a glass of wine. She stayed up late due to having the day off tomorrow. She waited for her son to walk through that door. Eva kept waiting until she fell asleep on the couch.

She didn’t know how long she was asleep, but it was dark outside when she checked the windows. “Kevin?,” she called, hoping he returned while she slept. Nobody replied. Now Eva started to really worry. She couldn’t call him, as he didn’t own his own phone, and she didn’t know where he went. She couldn’t call the police, he was only gone for a couple of hours. Not long enough to put out a missing persons alert. 

Terrifying thoughts crossed her mind: what if her son was kidnapped, or just as bad, went on another killing spree? She forced herself to keep calm. It was only a couple of hours; she can go search for him during the daytime, with a few more hours of sleep. Dragging herself off the couch and towards her room, she went with the option to wait out the night.

Eva opened the door to her room and stopped, shock-still. Her hand flew to her mouth before any sound escaped her lips. Her eyes wide, not knowing how to read the scene.

There, lying on her bed, like it belonged, was the pillow adorned with arrows.


End file.
